546 l JOHN, V. 13. [2468.
is only as " a broken cistern, that can hold no water:" and they set before us all the great and precious promises of our recon- ciled God, who has engaged to " work all his works in us," and to " perfect that which concern eth us." After being made to feel, in ten thousand instances, the weakness of human nature, we are made at last to " have our strength in the Lord alone"1," and to be willing that "his strength should be perfected in our weakness"."]
2. More firm in its actings —
[Our faith, when tried, is apt to waver. Peter, when the waves began to rise, brought on himself this just rebuke, " O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" And Sarah too " laughed" through unbelief, when, at her advanced age, she was taught to expect, a progeny, and to become a mother of nations. Yes, and Abraham himself, through the weakness of his faith, repeatedly desired Sarah to deny her relation to him, lest an acknowledgment of it should lead to his ruin. Thus we all find it, when we come into heavy trials. But by seeing in the Scriptures what God has done for his people in every age, and what he has engaged to do for them even to the end of the world, we learn, at last, to trust our God in all possible circumstances, and to be " strong in faith, giving glory to God0."]
3. More uniform in its operations —
[Faith ought not to consist in acts, so much as to be one continued habit of the mind. The believer should live upon the Lord Jesus Christ, as a branch upon the vine. Whether winds or frosts menace its existence, the branch still cleaves to the stock, and derives from it the sap which is necessary to its preservation : and so must the believer cleave to the Lord Jesus Christ ; and say with the Apostle, " I live ; yet not T, but Christ liveth in me : and the life which 1 now live in the flesh, / live by the faith of the Son of God, who hath loved me, and given himself for mep." In himself he must " be dead," if I may so speak ; and " his life must be hid with Christ in God :" it is by having " Christ as his life," that he will insure his future " appearance with Christ in glory q."]
Application —
1. Study then, my brethren, the blessed word of
God—
[" Search the Scriptures," says our blessed Lord; " for in them ye think ye have eternal life : and they are they that
m Eph. vi. 10. "2 Cor. xii. 9. ° Rom. iv. 20.
p Gal. ii. 20. <J Col. iii. 3, 4.